


An Amateur Treatise on Free Will

by fenellaevangela



Category: Space Cases (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 10:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10717467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/pseuds/fenellaevangela
Summary: Goddard had to chase evil triplets of himself across known space, once upon a time.





	An Amateur Treatise on Free Will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karrenia_rune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/gifts).



> You mentioned that you'd be interested in Goddard backstory and Goddard's evil triplets are one of my favourite throwaway lines in the show, so this is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it!

“How does this even happen?” then-lieutenant Goddard exclaimed, staring aghast at the two men restrained in the brig. One had his wrists shackled behind his back, but otherwise they were identical. And not just to each other.

A science officer stood a few feet away from the men’s cell, holding a device Goddard wasn’t familiar with in her hand. She didn’t look away from its display as she answered.

“Actually, evil twins occur more often than you might think,” she explained. Completing whatever scans she was performing on the first man, she directed her device towards the next. “Alternate universes and malfunctioning tech, mostly, but I’m sure you Stardogs know all about that! Although this is the first incident of evil _triplets_ that I’ve ever heard of. It’s fascinating; If I can figure out what caused the three-way split, I’ll have to publish my findings. You’ll be the talk of the field, sir.”

Goddard snorted. Yeah, that was sure to help him get promoted to commander. “Lucky me.”

“I’m not _evil_ ,” snarled the shackled doppelganger, moving abruptly to the front of the cell and startling the science officer. He’d been the most vocal of the two by far. Goddard had taken to calling him ‘Tweedle-Dee’ in his head.

“Oh yeah? You sent three security guards to the infirmary,” Goddard said, stepping closer.

Tweedle-Dee twisted his mouth into an ugly frown. Goddard couldn’t shake how bizarre it was to see his own face this way. “If they’d let us leave, there wouldn’t have been a problem. They should have kept their hands to themselves.”

“He’s right. We didn’t start all this,” the second doppelganger said.

“No one’s leaving,” said Goddard, pulling his focus from Tweedle-Dee to Tweedle-Dum, “and you both know that. Regulations clearly state that all crewmembers involved in . . . unusual incidents such as this are confined to base until it’s resolved.”

“Last time I checked there was only _one_ Seth Goddard enlisted in the Stardogs,” Tweedle-Dum pointed out. While Tweedle-Dee’s aggression was antagonistic, it was still something that Goddard recognized in himself. Tweedle-Dum’s calm disavowal of everything Goddard stood for was just . . . unsettling.

“You really think that doesn’t apply to you anymore?” Goddard asked

Tweedle-Dee nodded. “We’re not members of this or any other crew, and you can’t keep us here.” His shoulder jerked as he obviously tried to pull his wrists free.

Frowning, Goddard backed away from the cell and turned his back on its eerie occupants. Dismissing the science officer, he stopped next to the guard at the door before leaving himself.

“No one lets them out of that cell without my knowing. Understand?”

The guard saluted. “Yessir.”

* * *

Goddard had proven himself a well-trained and extremely skilled officer; he had evaded capture dozens of times and escaped from Spung custody twice, a feat only a few Stardogs could claim. So really, it wasn’t actually much of a surprise when Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum broke out of the brig. At least, that was how Goddard planned to spin it to his commander once the whole mess was cleaned up.

Tweedle-Dum had gone to ground and was probably waiting for his chance to escape unseen. Goddard had given the recovery team what insight he could but if Tweedle-Dum was planning to slip away quietly then at least he wasn’t immediately dangerous. It was possible that Goddard would be able to find him but there was no doubt in his mind that this airlock was where he could do the most good. Where Tweedle-Dum was relying on stealth, Tweedle-Dee had chosen the loudest, brashest escape route available to him and taken a hostage to boot. Goddard could be covert when he wanted but he had always had a flair for grand gestures; this is how he would have done it, too. He knew how this was going to go.

“Get back!” Goddard ordered. He waved the security officers away. “Do _not_ shoot.”

Tweedle-Dee gave a mirthless laugh. He tightened his grip on the science officer, making her wince. “You worried they’ll hit the doc, here, or that they’ll hit me?”

Neither option was appealing. After a moment’s hesitation Goddard held out his open hands – his sidearm now holstered and his comms disengaged – and took a tentative step forward. “It doesn’t have to go down this way, Tweedle-Dee. Just - ”

“Don’t call me that!” Tweedle-Dee snapped. “I’m not a character from a children’s book – I am not _fictional_.”

“So what do you want me to call you?” asked Goddard, inching forward. If he could just get close enough -

Without breaking eye contact the other man punched in the passcode for the airlock, which hissed open behind him. Before Goddard had a chance to lunge, Tweedle-Dee shoved his hostage forward into Goddard’s open arms and backed up into the waiting shuttle.

“You could try using my name. But I’d prefer if we never spoke again. See you never, lieutenant.”

Within moments, he was gone. Goddard was glad the science officer was uninjured, and he still held out hope that they had a chance to apprehend Tweedle-Dum before he made it off the base, but a small part of him couldn’t help but despair. He was never going to make commander now that he’d let evil triplets of himself loose upon the galaxy.

* * *

He did not, in fact, manage find Tweedle-Dum before the man made it off the base.

When he did eventually find him, Goddard was pretty sure it was because Tweedle-Dum had decided to let him find him, and that rattled. The only good thing about evil twins – or triplets, because Goddard was just that exceptional – was that they were supposed to be fundamentally the same as whoever they were duplicated from. Some part of their personality had to be different, of course, in order for them to be _evil_ , but when it came to the essentials Goddard assumed that he and Tweedle-Dum were on the same wavelength. So Goddard should have been able to determine where the other him would flee, his whole man hunt should have been a walk in the park.

Except, it hadn’t been. 

The Saturnian bar was the last place Goddard would have gone to lie low. Brightly coloured and brightly lit, it provided no convenient corners to lose oneself in. And almost all the patrons were Saturnians, so Tweedle-Dum’s dull hair stuck out like a sore thumb.

“You let that patrol see you,” Goddard said, slipping into the empty stool next to Tweedle-Dum. It wasn’t a question.

“It seemed the easiest way to contact you that wouldn’t end up with me in a cell before we could talk.”

Goddard settled in, leaning his elbows on the bar and ordering the first drink on the menu that he actually recognized. “What do we have to talk about?”

Tweedle-Dum slowly rolled his still-full glass between his palms. “At first I thought what happened to us was just another wacky space mishap that you’ve got to get up after, dust yourself off, and go on with your life. You know the type.” He glanced over at Goddard briefly. “The Stardogs weren’t my calling anymore, but so what? I could find another life to live. People do it all the time.”

“You’ve been raiding freighters,” Goddard pointed out. “That’s a calling now?”

“That was my delightful counterpart,” said Tweedle-Dum. “I only accompanied him once.”

Goddard snorted. His drink arrived and he took a quick swig. “Didn’t get along?”

Tweedle-Dum shrugged. “Piracy doesn’t suit me.” He took a drink from his glass. “Actually, nothing really suits me anymore.”

This all sounded pretty bleak to Goddard. 

“So how do I fit into all of this?” he asked.

The other man pushed his glass away from himself, the remaining liquid sloshing slightly. “I don’t think running suits me, either.”

* * *

It had taken six months, a near-demotion, and what had felt like endless false leads, but Goddard thought that maybe this would finally be the end if it all.

“You’re coming back with me,” he said. “You can come quietly like Tweedle-Dum, here, or I can drag you, but either way it’s happening.”

“And go back to what?” asked Seth. “A prison cell? A lab? I have the whole of space open to me right now and I’m _finally_ not chained down by the inane Stardogs code. I’ve done things out here that you never even dreamed of! Why would I let you lock me up now?”

Goddard steeled himself. “I’m not locking you up, Seth – the three of us will be reconstituted into one person. We’ll be put back to normal.”

Just like Goddard had expected, Seth’s jaw dropped. “ _What_? I’m supposed to agree to that?” He turned, aghast, to Tweedle-Dum. “I’m supposed to believe _you_ agreed to that?”

There was a moment – a split-second of real fear – when Goddard was worried that Tweedle-Dum would agree with his fellow doppelganger. Goddard tensed as the other man moved closer to Seth, but then he holstered his weapon.

“I remember giving a damn,” Tweedle-Dum said. “Do you remember what that felt like? All this apathy and frustration– it feels real, but I don’t want it. I want to be the old Goddard again.”

Seth threw his hands up. “But you won’t be! Don’t you get it? You won’t _be_. You’ll just disappear.”

Goddard couldn’t help but feel chills as he watched the two duplicates of himself square off this way – an existential debate had never felt so viscerally real.

“How do you know that?” Tweedle-Dum asked. “You’re _afraid_ that joining back together will make us disappear, but why should it? We remember what happened to Goddard before the split; why wouldn’t he remember what happened to us afterwards? And if he does . . . we’re not really gone.”

Seth sneered. “How long did it take them to convince you of that?”

“It’s as good a possibility as any,” Tweedle-Dum insisted.

“And you’re willing to flip a coin between oblivion and being a bad memory?’ Seth asked

Tweedle-Dun sighed. “Everything since the split feels like a bad _dream_.”

Silence hung heavily between the three of them for a moment before Seth shrugged.

“Well, do that if you want, but I’m not going to.” 

Quicker than Goddard was prepared for, Seth whipped Tweedle-Dum across the face with his sidearm and then took aim at Goddard before the other doppelganger had even hit the ground. Goddard discharged his weapon as soon as he had a clear shot, but it was too late; his aim went wide as Seth’s shot hit his right shoulder and jerked his whole arm backward. Seth charged at him and grabbed the weapon from Goddard’s loosened grip, then darted away.

Even with the pain radiating from his injured shoulder, Goddard wanted to pursue the fleeing man with every fibre of his being. But the other doppelganger was stirring on the ground and groaning in pain and it wouldn’t do to alienate the closest thing he had to an ally in this venture.

Goddard leaned over and carefully offered Tweedle-Dum his left hand. “You okay?” he asked.

“I just pistol-whipped myself,” Tweedle-Dum said, taking the offered hand and pulling himself up. “You?”

“Shot myself,” Goddard explained.

Tweedle-Dum raised and eyebrow. “And you’re fine?”

Goddard shrugged, winced, and nodded instead. “I will be. Let’s just hope I still am after I tell my commander that I missed that man _again_.”

* * *

When Goddard opened his eyes the world felt . . . different.

“Sir?” asked a voice. Goddard turned his head and saw the science officer standing there, the one who had been working so hard on his problem from the very start. “How are you feeling? Are you yourself?” 

It was a loaded question. Goddard felt like he was himself, but hadn’t he felt that way the day before? Hadn’t Tweedle-Dum, hadn’t Seth? He knew they had. He _knew_. But Goddard was no fool; he also knew that there was only one answer he could give that would result in him getting the clearance he needed to continue his work with the Stardogs. He had a career to consider, and now that he could finally put the last year of triplet hunting behind him there was a promotion waiting for him sooner rather than later.

“I think it worked,” Goddard told the science officer.

She looked relieved. “Oh, thank goodness! I would have never forgiven myself if one of the others had remained and you weren’t the _real_ you, lieutenant Goddard.”

Don’t worry,” Goddard said. “And please, after all we’ve gone through? Call me Seth.”


End file.
